Powder diffraction

Powder diffraction is a way of studying materials that have tiny crystals inside them. To do this, scientists use a machine that shines a special kind of light—like a flashlight—onto the material. When the light hits the crystal structure inside the material, it scatters or bounces off in different directions. We can figure out what kind of crystals the material has by looking at how the light scatters. This is like when you throw rocks into a pond—different rocks create different patterns in the water. But instead of rocks, in powder diffraction we use light and study the patterns it makes when it bounces off the tiny crystals.